California Murder Mystery: Actress Rachel Buffet Says She Was Duped
Rachel Buffet says her only crime was falling for the wrong man.
Dec. 12, 2012 — -- Rachel Buffett, the California actress who is accused of helping her ex-fiance Dan Wozniak cover up an alleged double-murder, says she was duped, and her only crime was falling for the wrong man.
"I'm innocent," Buffett told ABC News Tuesday. "It was like the person I loved never really existed."
Police say the Long Beach, Calif., actress, 25, wasn't tricked at all, and not only knew the real Wozniak, who is charged with killing two friends in an attempted money-making plan, but that she was an accessory, covering up the crime.
Wozniak, 28, is in jail on two felony counts of special circumstances murder, while Buffett is out on $1 million bail after she was taken into custody Nov. 20 on suspicion of being an accessory to murder after the fact, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"It's hard to eat when you're stomach is in knots," Buffett said.
It's unclear when they will go to trial.
Wozniak's neighbors Sam Herr, 26, and Julie Kibuishi, 23, were killed in the spring of 2010, when Buffett and Wozniak were community theatre actors starring in the musical "Nine."
Police say on the same day the couple performed in the play, Wozniak lured college student Herr, who had recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan, into the theater and shot him. Wozniak then allegedly dismembered the body.
Prosecutors say that the motive for the killing was to steal Herr's savings account.
"He took away my best friend, my son," Steven Herr, Samuel's father, told ABC News. "Every father out there listening to this absolutely knows how I feel."
On the night of the killings, Herr's father went to his son's apartment, where he found the body of Kibuishi, a friend and classmate of Herr's. She had also been shot, and there was evidence of a sexual assault.
But authorities say Wozniak attempted to make it look like Herr had shot Kibuishi, and then killed himself.
It was when cash disappeared from Sam Herr's bank account that police traced it back to Wozniak.
Wozniak, who is facing a possible death sentence, has pleaded not guilty. Buffett is going public, saying the only thing she's guilty of was falling in love with the wrong man.
"Do I have just a horrible judgment of character?" she asked.
For Steven Herr, that's simply not good enough.
"Do I believe she is part of this?" he asked. "Absolutely."